eCart integration into open source CMS'

Is it possible to integrate eCart, as an ecommerce solution into open source CMS'? I have a very nice CMS that I am working with, aside from the ecommerce solution not being too developed at this point. Other than that, it is a rock-solid CMS. ...I want to try to integrate WebAssist's eCart with this CMS. Please give some guidance on this. It would be majorly appreciated. Thank you.

One of the reasons that I am asking this is because I need a fully integrated solution. Most of the eCart solution is really good, except I am concerned about the main index page. ...Admittedly, I am working through the BlueSky Music tutorial right now. I see that the main index page is full of a lot of static content and this concerns me. For instance, the Current Specials, News and Events are all static content in nature. I am concerned about users, who are the owners of the site (or, if you want to call them my customers) needing to be able to update this page via the back-end, as is done in a CMS.

Hoping for a quick answer to this one. It's not just out of curiosity. I am having to make a development decision today or tomorrow. I am wanting to use eCart for the ecommerce solution, but I need it integrated into a powerful CMS. I already have something I use and like and it is open source (written in PHP). Thanks for your help.

Are these kinds of questions anathema here? Common, at least give me an answer. I have spent at least $1000 on WebAssist products and you cannot answer a question like this? I see you spending time on all kinds of other threads, many of which are easy for you and take little thought. But no takers on this thread. I understand you are trying to develop your own proprietary CMS, but most people will not use it or not all customers will want it or a customer may already have a CMS in place and want an eCart integrated. Since your eCart is offered in PHP, it seems that this should be possible. Can I please have some guidance on this?

The eCart tools produces the commerce and cart functionality and will work within a php based site. There is nothing within eCart that prevents it from being added to an existing site. You can run into some problems though depending on how your site is setup and works, without having the experience of adding in eCart to a CMS system like you have it is difficult to say what specifically will be needed to get it working for you the way you would like it. If you have the eCart tool already you should start off by making a copy of your CMS site and adding eCart to the copy. As you have noted there is some documentation on the support pages for using eCart, please post back with any specific questions that you have about this process and we will be glad to help you with whatever we can.

Originally Said By: Eric Mittman

  The eCart tools produces the commerce and cart functionality and will work within a php based site. There is nothing within eCart that prevents it from being added to an existing site. You can run into some problems though depending on how your site is setup and works, without having the experience of adding in eCart to a CMS system like you have it is difficult to say what specifically will be needed to get it working for you the way you would like it. If you have the eCart tool already you should start off by making a copy of your CMS site and adding eCart to the copy. As you have noted there is some documentation on the support pages for using eCart, please post back with any specific questions that you have about this process and we will be glad to help you with whatever we can.  

Eric, thank you! I am working with a VERY powerful CMS, built on an excellent framework. ...I would be very appreciative of a specific solution offered to me, to integrate the eCart store into this CMS. Thank you!

I'm not familiar with this system, are you able to edit individual pages in the site? So long as you can add server side code to the pages in your CMS and save pages to the same directory as these files reside then you should be able to integrate eCart. The first step in this is to open a page from the site in DW and create a new cart object. The overall process should not differ from any other type of site, I would suggest that you start with the getting started guide for eCart, here is a link:

ecart_gsg.pdf

We will not be able to offer you a specific set of steps for integrating the cart with your setup but if you run into any problems or have any questions about any specific part please let us know and we will do what we can to help you out with this.